Susan in Greeley, CO spent her career as a physical therapist. She told me most often, people are injured simply because they are not paying attention. They have decided to take a short cut, or feel hurried, or take their mind from the thing they are doing in order to save time or mental effort and– crack, bam or twist— that’s when it happens. It is in these moments that their mind goes one way and their body goes another.

The mindfulness movement isn’t new– it’s ancient. But it’s been in a Renaissance of sorts, with words like “intentional” and “being present” seeping into the vernacular. My Someone’s grandma, whose memorial my Someone is attending this weekend, called it “Keeping body and soul together.” She was a devout Nazarene, and would likely be horrified to hear that phrasing in reference to my yogic practice. So I kept my delight of our shared sacred belief to myself, feeling strangely connected when I’d hear her ask her grandson at the end of their phone calls, “Well, are you keeping body and soul together?” Like trying to keep the vinyl floor glued down, or Wendy stitching up Peter Pan’s Shadow to himself.

The irritation with paying attention is that it takes time. There isn’t a short cut to not taking short cuts. It is an agonizing, unrelenting process that quite literally comes one step at a time. And if you aren’t paying attention– well, then you’ve already lost it.

I was thinking of Susan when we walked the low sloping hills along our campsite in the Badlands last month. We were going to see these natural phenomena with our friends John & Becky, who’d flown all the way out from New Hampshire to spend a week with us on tour in South Dakota. While they’d stayed in a hotel, we’d slept in the park under a drape of stars the night before, listening to the coyotes yip close by. John & Becky would be meeting us in the morning for breakfast, before it got too hot to bear, and we hopped-to to get the dogs a walk before their arrival. We’d been walking for more than 20 minutes or so when it felt like time to turn back. I didn’t want to be late. My Someone and I looked back over the path along the ridgeline, realizing we’d gone further than we thought. Then we took a look down the slope of the hill, tall grasses and an occasional cactus that led down to a faster road back. Susan’s words began to press on me, but I pushed through them in favor of the press of time that is almost always pushing on my skull.

Then a new feeling passed over me– something was wrong.

“Snake awake!” I yelled, a mantra we’d been shouting since we saw a sign that read those words back in Colorado.

“Snake awake!” my Someone yelled back, laughing. But I wasn’t laughing– I knew.

At that moment, ten feet into the uncharted grass, my littlest dog stepped on a snake. I pulled her back, hard, and ran us back to the dirt path. I checked her over, frustrated. The press of time suddenly didn’t matter. I saw nothing– no mark, no reaction. We took the long way back. When we arrived at the bottom, our friends Michael & Erin were there waiting– we were in our last week of tour together. I recounted our walk, the snake, and just as I said “And I guess she didn’t get bit after all–” my Someone pointed to her foot.

There they were, two bright red dots on the foot she’d stepped with, perfectly sized to the small snake I’d seen. Now, I pushed the rush of my head down and began dialing John & Becky. My Someone packed the truck and called the local vet.

“Can you go with John & Becky to see the Bandlands today?” I asked Michael and Erin. Of course, of course. And we were on our way. When we finally got to better service, just a mile up, I got hold of the Visitor’s Center, then another vet. They both had me describe the situation, the size of the snake, the color, my dog’s reaction. And both assured me– no, everything will be all right. Keep an eye on her, but there is almost assuredly nothing wrong. The dog is big, the snake was small, and the likelihood of it being a rattler– even a small one– is low. I hesitated, then took a moment to put body and soul together. I listened. And then, yes. They were right.

We returned to the campsite where all of our friends were waiting. We ate heaping bowls of oatmeal and slurped our coffee and everyone doted on my littlest dog, telling her how brave she is, watching her for any indication of poisoning. I felt my heart rate decrease. And my littlest dog got a first class ride in Michael & Erin’s van for the day to monitor her as we all went to see the Badlands.

No more short cuts were taken. It was a really stunning visit.

When we returned from tour, my mind was brambled from the trip. My Someone’s grandma had passed away. One of my best friends had lost his dad. And also, my mother was coming to visit. My mother, who has not in my adult life come to visit me– just me. My mother, who I have been estranged from for several years. This atop the stress of travel, of hundreds of people and personalities and no time to take it slow. So, just as with last August, Rowe & Laurie helped us secure a canoe and some gear, and we headed to the Green River Reservoir in Vermont to watch the beavers swim and the loons nest and the water change color with the sunlight.

On the first morning, they took an early paddle out while my Someone and I stayed back. I began painting a little book I’d brought along beside our morning fire and coffee. When they returned, I made motion to get up when Rowe said–

“No, no need to go yet. You’re doing it. You’re doing the thing we come here for.”

“You mean wasting time?” I said.

“You’re not wasting time,” he said quickly, “you’re embracing it.”

As it turns out, there are no shortcuts to embracing time. You simply have to spend it as it comes. I thought of this as we paddled in the morning, ate our lunch by the water, swam. I thought of this as I lazed about starting a new book and reading it for consecutive hours, breaking for a small nap in between. I thought of this the next morning, when I woke first a little before five, and felt called to embrace time by touching the water. When I dipped in from the rocks, the fog was still on the water and cast in a pink glow from the sunrise. I soundlessly submerged myself to my neck, and as I waited, patiently asking myself to embrace time, a little creature’s head began moving toward me. I gasped, but he was undeterred. The young beaver swam, turned, and swam again, making circles around the spot I was treading water. Finally, he swam off and didn’t return. I took it as my cue to finally swim forward, out to the little island in the middle of the reservoir. When I got there, I stood up on the rock, and my little friend caught sight of me in my full height from the shore. He slapped his tail in warning– I was not what he’d expected.

I waited a little longer, making sure I wouldn’t be interrupting his morning work, and when I didn’t see him, I tread back in to swim to shore. Within three strokes he appeared again, and swam alongside me, just a couple of feet away. We swam like this til we arrived back to shore. I stayed in the deep for a while, watching him chew industriously for several minutes until I was sure my presence would bother him. When I returned to the rock, he pushed from shore again and swam toward me. It was the closest we’d been in our time together. I saw his little eyes glistening and the texture of his fur, his nose moving with the intake of breath. And then, he was gone. When I left the water, I did not feel as though I had embraced time. I felt that time had embraced me. I swam with a beaver for 45 minutes. It was at least my best guess as I saw my friends emerge from their tents around 6.

I was grateful to see Laurie first. I couldn’t spend another minute keeping this little piece of magic to myself. Or rather, I could only spend another minute, the next minute, one at a time. I didn’t take any shortcuts. I told her every detail.

The visit with my mother went well. More than well. By the end of the weekend, it was as if we’d recovered something. In some way, we had. But it wasn’t time. I kept reminding myself after I dropped her off at the airport that the time spent apart wasn’t wasted. In order to keep body and soul together, we had to remain apart. Relationships are the body of two people. For these years, I became mindful of this body I share with my mother– how it works, how it doesn’t. And I remained mindful of it when we were physically together again. For the first time, I felt like myself around her. And I kept my mind on this shared body– I listened harder, I noticed more, I welcomed her like I’d learned to welcome myself in this time we spent apart.

There were no missteps– no emotional twisted ankles or metaphorical snake bites. Because we had not taken any short cuts to get here. We endured the painful, long road of healing. I could not have fast forward through the anger, the grief, the despair in the same way that she could not race through the regret, the ache, the distance. We took our agonizing time. And while we may not be running any races now, we are at least walking the same path again. Slowly. Keeping body and soul together.